List of mentally ill barred from buying guns gets longer

PARK CITY, Utah — A federal list of mentally ill people barred from buying guns has more than doubled since the Virginia Tech shootings, and U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey encouraged more states Thursday to add information to the database.

In his first policy speech since taking over as attorney general this month, Mukasey said states have reported 393,957 mentally ill people to the federal database used to screen the backgrounds of potential gun buyers. As of July, three months after the Virginia Tech shootings, states had submitted only 174,863 names to the database.

"Instant background checks are essential to keeping guns out of the wrong hands, while still protecting the privacy of our citizens," Mukasey said.

"But as we learned in the tragedy at Virginia Tech, the checks must be accurate and complete to be effective," Mukasey told the National Association of Attorneys General.

People are included in the federal database only after courts or other authorities have found them to have mental-health problems, Justice Department officials said. Federal agencies, including the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments, also submit names, but the Justice Department could not immediately say how many.

Currently, 32 states, including Washington, submit names to the mental-health database, and the federal government cannot force the other 18 to follow suit.

"We've got 32, it'd be nice to have 50," Mukasey said.

Virginia Tech student Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people and himself in the deadliest campus shooting in U.S. history.

He bought two guns — a Glock 9mm at a Virginia store and a .22-caliber pistol over the Internet — despite a special justice's 2005 order to get outpatient treatment for being a danger to himself. There has been no indication that Cho received the treatment.

Had his court order been submitted to the federal database, Cho likely would have been unable to buy the guns.

Private mental-health records, including diagnosis documents from hospitals or insurance companies, are not accessed or submitted to the database. Overall, more than 5 million people are identified in the background-check system that is maintained by the FBI and also tracks the names of illegal immigrants, domestic-violence offenders and others who are barred from buying guns.

Despite Cho's gun purchases, Virginia traditionally has submitted far more names of mentally ill people to the federal database than other states, Justice data show. Shortly after the Virginia Tech shootings, officials said, the state had given 81,233 names to the FBI.

By comparison, California had submitted only 27 names of mentally ill people to the database as of April 30. Since then, the state has given more than 200,000 names to the list, Justice officials said.

National Rifle Association spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said the gun-rights group has no problem with the database.

Ron Honberg, legal director for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said, "We're concerned that in the minds of many, mental illness is, per se, equated with violence."